Short Story

Hi all! I am sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I have been having some trouble with internet explorer that has made it really hard to post anything. Since I haven't posted anything in a while, I decided to just post a short story instead of another chapter in one of my other stories. I hope you like it. The main idea that I want to get across is that Jesus is Lord of all and can use anything to draw his children closer to him. Please let me know if I got that message across. Was the thing with the light and the darkness confusing, or did it enhance the meaning? Also, please feel free to point out any grammer or speelling mistakes. I hope you like it

They say that your life flashes before your eyes as you die. As I blink my eyes, time slows to a crawl. I blink again, and a tear rolls down my face. I see the people I love the most standing around. They are laughing and crying throughout the years. I was there for all. The tear stops at my chin, but my shallow breath sends it to the ground, like an earthquake sending me over the cliff and plummeting to the end of my life. I know that I am dying. I accept it.

The tear mixes with a thin stream of blood on the floor. My blood. I shudder and sigh, then the world goes black.

*****

My name is Melissa Black. I was born on October 13, 1993 to Mark and Amanda Black. From the first moment I opened my eyes and looked up at the smiling faces of my parents I saw things different from anyone else. I know, because I remember. I don’t tell anyone because I know that they would not smile and laugh at my imagination as they once did. I am eighteen now.

The day I was born seemed bright and beautiful. The colors of the world looked down on me and danced around my crib as I grew, laughing when I laughed, and crying when I cried. I grew older, and I began to love the way my parents smiled at each other. Each smile sent a bright light radiating throughout the room, jumping from wall to wall and screaming with love and joy.

They wouldn’t always smile like that.

As I grew, I began to crawl. This would not be unusual, every baby crawls at some point. I began crawling as soon as my parents weren’t looking. I would play games with the colors. They would laugh and run away as I giggled and pursued. The bright blue on the windowsill would call my name.

“Melly! Melly!”

I loved that. My parents used to call me that. The color would happily jump up and down when I caught sight of it, then it would drop to the floor and run in circles around me. I laughed. I laughed so much that it hurt. I loved the colors.

I grew older and older. I was ten now. I had just begun to realize that there were good as well as bad colors. I used to leave a nightlight on when it grew dark so that I did not have to deal with the conflicting colors. But then my mother decided it was time for me to grow up some more, and she took it away. Then I began to see a battle being waged all around me. The light was weakest at night, it’s bright and lovely colors disappeared many times, and the evil, cold, colors began to dominate. They scared me, taking the form of creatures that were intent on eating me. I hid under my covers but they were even under there.

My mother began to become concerned about me. I had never given up talking about the colors and how they spoke to me, and now I was not getting any sleep at night. I would fall asleep in the middle of school each day. She did not know what to do.

My father was of the opinion that I was simply going through what he called a “stage”. However, my mother insisted and I was taken to a doctor. The man was not like most doctors, who a cheery and ask funny questions. This doctor sat in a room which felt like the night and asked questions which darkened the room. The questions were strange and the conclusion was even stranger. The doctor said that I should be taken to visit another doctor. He said that my eyes were the problem. The other doctor was nicer, but when he turned out the lights I couldn’t help myself. I screamed.

It was fine in the light, but when the dark colors appeared, they thickened more than ever and closed around me as if trying to choke me. The doctor turned the light on again and asked a lot of other questions. The doctor said I would have to get glasses. I was fine with that. They sounded alright and maybe they would help me see the colors.

They didn’t help.

They made it even worse. I was able to see the colors more clearly at times, but my parents stopped smiling. I saw many other doctors throughout the following years, and each one made me wonder more and more about my parents. I saw more and more darkness in them. They began to shout at each other, and sometimes at me. I cried at first, but then I joined in. The more they shouted, the more I screamed. I wanted the colors back, and the light. Now all that I could see was the darkness. The blackness oozed all around me and filled every word I spoke and every word I heard.

When I turned fifteen, my mother met another woman at work. My mother stopped yelling then. I didn’t understand why. She started to go to church with this woman, and began to beg my father to go as well. He said no every time. The colors stopped calling to me, and my father started to call me Melissa.

My mother tried to take me a few times, but no matter what she said, I was determined to say no like my father. It was not so much the word that mattered, as the possibility of a small bit of light returning to my home. It seemed to me that if things were just as they had been before, the light would return. But things were not as before. There were no more fights, but my father still did not smile and he stopped coming home for lunch.

I remember thinking that it was my mom’s fault. She insisted on going to church every week, and insisted that she had changed, but all she did was drive dad further away. When I was seventeen, my mother finally convinced me to go to an Easter service at her church. I only went to convince her never to return, but something the speaker said caught my attention.

The preacher claimed that the darkness came from all of us, not just my parents. He said it was always there, even when we were children. But I remembered, there was no darkness until I grew older. I sneered at the preacher as we left the building. He had to be wrong. He couldn’t be right.

I quickly discovered that none of my methods were helping get mom home again. Nothing was fixing itself. I didn’t know what to do. Then, on my eighteenth birthday, a “friend” approached me. She said she knew what I was going through, and said she had a solution.

“Rebel”

She said it so confidently, I knew it must work. I was certain it would work. Then she gave me the opportunity I needed. I met her this evening, October 20, 2011, outside of an abandoned warehouse. I saw the light all around me as I walked down the street. For the first time in years, I actually felt somewhat happy. I didn’t expect the knife.

She laughed at me as I lay dying. “Freak.” She whispered “No wonder your parents don’t love you. You’re just a freak”

I groaned, she was right. I was nothing more than a freak. My parents didn’t need me around.

Now, I am dead.

*****

They say that your life flashes before your eyes as you die. Perhaps the correct word would be “dying”. I am not dead. My father is looking down at me, my mother is holding my hand, her eyes closed. She is praying. I blink, suddenly I think of the preacher, and what he had said about the darkness in all of it. I blink again, and begin to see the darkness closing in again. Another tear escapes my eye. The darkness engulfs me.

*****

I feel pain all over. I have woken up several times throughout the past week in the hospital. They will let me go any day now, but I don’t want to leave. Their food tastes horrible, but the peace and quiet has allowed me time to ask some important questions, and to think about the answers. Two days ago, I finally asked my mother the most important question.

She had been telling me all about Jesus. She told me how he was the son of God, the one who had created everything and ruled over all. He had given all of that up to come down to earth, which was filled with darkness. The darkness had not been there originally, but it had entered into the world because of the first humans. Jesus had come to earth and died a horrible death so that the darkness could be completely destroyed by the light.

“The darkness” her mother had said “is called sin. Sins are things we do that are not solely for the purpose of glorifying God. There is sin in every one of us, but because of Jesus’ sacrifice we can ask him to fight it and cover in the light of his love.”

Mother smiled as she spoke, and suddenly I saw it. There was light, all around her. Then it was gone again. My mom then spoke of a city of light which Jesus’ followers will live in after they die. She also spoke of Satan, and the pit of dark fire which all those who ran from the light of Jesus would be thrown into. I cried out in fear as she told me about this.

Finally, I asked the question. How do I ask for Jesus to cover me in light? My mother smiled such a bright smile. Then she began to cry with joy as she taught me how to talk to God and ask him to forgive me for letting darkness fill my life. I cried as I realized that the darkness which I had told myself came from the people around me, really was coming from me. As the tears rolled down my face, I saw the light breaking through the dark cloud around me, and I felt love. Pure love.

The doctors have encouraged me to take up a hobby to ease the loneliness of my stay at the hospital. I am not lonely, now I feel the light all around me. But I am not ignorant of the dark. I know it is all around me as well, and I will fight it to my dying breath. Still, it did become rather tiresome, sitting in the same position all day long doing absolutely nothing. So I have started painting.

The doctors come in to look at my works every now and then. They mutter and sigh as they look at them, and then they tell me how amazing my works are. They talk about how the colors seem to jump off of the page and tell of the joy within me. I simply smile and tell them my story, for I am not ashamed of the gospel. I paint the light and the joy which it gives me. But now I know, the light is Jesus and he loves me.

Comments

The beginning got me right away. I love how she loves the colors, yet there's this feeling of darkness. I was going right along and then her "friend" killing her really surprised me, and then she survived, and there was color and light and joy again. :) You did really well in such a short story; the symbolism was so cool.

I don't have many corrections, but you did ask. Assuming "grammer" and "speelling" were a joke? :) Mostly, it's just punctuation. At least once you used "it's" (contraction) instead of "its" (possessive), which is an incredibly easy mistake to make. There should be a period after "Rebel." Also,

This is wonderful, Elizabeth! I love the imagery of the colors and darkness, and how something from her childhood and personality is something God uses to bring her to Himself. :)
The only thing I noticed that could be corrected was this -
"The man was not like most doctors, who a cheery and ask funny questions. "
Are you wanting to say "who are cheery?"
:)

See him with his books:
Tree beside the brooks,
Drinking at the root
Till the branch bear fruit.
See him with his pen:
Written line, and then,
Better thought preferred,
Deep from in the Word.
~John Piper

See him with his books:
Tree beside the brooks,
Drinking at the root
Till the branch bear fruit.
See him with his pen:
Written line, and then,
Better thought preferred,
Deep from in the Word.
~John Piper

Elizabeth, this is very, very inspiring. I'm sorry to say that I haven't been keeping up with all of your stories lately, but tonight I remembered (because I got the crazy notion to write my own story, who knows how that will go) and have been reading some of your poems and short stories (seeing as how it's 1:30 AM I figured I didn't have time at the moment to start any of your longer stories because I know once I read one chapter I won't be able to stop!). You really are a very talented writer, and I know God will use your gift to do something great :)